Arm unveils new chip designs to boost visual experiences and supercharge mobile games

Arm unveiled its Total Compute Solutions to redefine visual experiences and supercharge mobile gaming.

Paul Williamson, senior vice president and general manager of the client line of business at Arm, said in a briefing that the company’s flagship Immortalis graphics processing unit (GPU) will supercharge the Android gaming experience, including hardware-based ray tracing for the first time.

“Arm sets the standard for performance efficient compute,” Williams said.

John Romero, co-creator of Doom and Quake, talked with Arm about the changes for 3D graphics in gaming over time. He said he doesn’t see barriers to AR on mobile phones that can take 3D games into the real world.

The company also showed off its latest Armv9 central processing units (CPUs) deliver new levels of peak and efficient performance. Arm doesn’t make its own chips. Arm designs its architecture and licenses it to chip makers so they can incorporate the designs into their own chips. And Arm is proceeding on its own after it had an abortive deal to be acquired by Nvidia for $80 billion.

Arm said its Arm Total Compute Solutions address every level of performance, efficiency and scalability for specialized processing across all consumer device markets.

“This time last year, I wrote about how digital experiences had never been more important, from personal
to business devices – they helped us stay connected and entertained at a time when we needed it most,” Williamson said. “Compute continues to define our experiences in the modern world, and now these experiences are becoming even more visual.”

He noted that smartphones are still at the center of our connected lives. From gaming to productivity, through video calling, social media or virtual environments, it is the device that provides us the connection to everyone and everything, in real time, he said. Arm is working with partners like Unity to make sure software can take advantage of its chip designs.

“For developers, making these immersive real-time 3D experiences even more compelling and engaging requires more performance,” Williamson said. “Our latest suite of compute solutions for consumer devices will continue to raise the threshold of what’s possible in the mobile market, shaping the visual experiences of tomorrow.”

Arm’s 2022 Total Compute Solutions (TCS22) offer different levels of performance, efficiency and scalability, and bring together all elements of the Total Compute strategy, Williamson said.

“The combination of Arm IP launched in TCS22 will offer up to 28% more performance and up to 16% power reduction across a range of workloads, such as gaming, where benefits will include longer play time,” he said. “We continue to expand the dimensions of performance beyond general-purpose workloads to workloads requiring specialized processing, propelling mobile technology, not just on the GPU but across CPUs and System IP too.”

Gaming performance unleashed with Arm Immortalis and Mali GPUs

Arm is launching a brand-new flagship GPU called Immortalis, built on the heritage of Mali, the world’s most shipped GPU. Mali GPUs have shipped more than 8 billion units.

This one is configured and enhanced to deliver the ultimate mobile 3D experiences. Immortalis-G715 is the first Arm GPU to offer hardware-based ray tracing support on mobile, delivering more realistic and immersive gaming experiences, Williamson said.

In addition, Arm is launching the new premium Arm Mali-G715 GPU, which includes Variable Rate Shading, a graphics feature available across all new GPUs – to deliver significant energy savings and a further gaming performance boost.

The latest Arm GPUs are the most performant to date, with a 15% performance improvement compared
to the previous generation, demonstrating Arm’s focus on ensuring that the latest flagship and premium
smartphones deliver the gaming experiences that end-users are demanding. The new GPUs also build
upon the highly efficient Arm Mali-G710 GPU, with 15% energy efficiency improvements to deliver more
game time on the go.

Mobile gaming is driving the evolution of real-time 3D technology and the growth of visual experiences will see it deployed even more widely in the future, Williamson said.

“Developing on Arm allows creators to target energy-efficient high-performance computing solutions,” he said. “That means longer play time for the next wave of innovative applications and visual experiences. I can’t wait to see what the developers of tomorrow will create.”